YMCA in Washington State: Transgender patrons must now use private locker rooms and restrooms in facilities open to children

October 7, 2015

YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap county in Washington State has rolled back their transgender open locker room policy, which had allowed access to opposite sex locker rooms, showers, and restrooms to members who had proclaimed a belief that they are “mentally” the opposite sex. The changes came about after a mother and YMCA volunteer went to the press and exposed the risks to children, and potential liability for the non-profit, that the former policy created.

From MyNorthWest.com:

“Following complaints from the public, Bob Ecklund, President and CEO of the YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap county, issued a statement Oct. 5 saying the organization is modifying the policy for transgender individuals in locker rooms and restrooms in “family facilities.” Ecklund said the change was to ensure youth are not exposed to the opposite sex in their locker room.

Ecklund said the new policy states that “transgender members in transition will use private locker rooms for dressing and showering. Transgender members may use standalone restrooms that align with their gender identification. The change applies to: Gordon Family YMCA, Mel Korum Family YMCA, Lakewood Family YMCA, Morgan Family YMCA, Tom Taylor Family YMCA, Bremerton Family YMCA, Haselwood Family YMCA.

For locker rooms at “adult facilities,” transgender members may use locker rooms and restrooms that align with their gender identification. That applies to Tacoma Center YMCA and University Y Student Center.

“We understand transgender individuals who are in transition often face a dilemma on where to change and shower, and the Y strives to be a place to be safe and inclusive of everyone in our care,” Ecklund wrote.

“I want to emphasize this narrow revision of the policy is focused on dressing and showering spaces only, as they are the most sensitive spaces in our facility, especially as it relates to children.”

Ecklund noted that as a nonprofit in Washington State, YMCAs are both “employers” and “places of public accommodation,” and that they are required to comply with all laws regulating employers and places of public accommodations.

“Washington State recognizes transgender rights and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which includes gender identity,” Ecklund wrote. “We believe we are both following the law and accommodating our diverse groups of members. We also note this is an evolving area of the law, and we will continue to stay tuned to updates from Washington State.”

Read the whole story, which is very interesting and well-reported by journalist Eric Mandel here:

71 Responses to “YMCA in Washington State: Transgender patrons must now use private locker rooms and restrooms in facilities open to children”

“Transgender members in transition will use private locker rooms for dressing and showering.”

Of course, this just opens up a can of worms regarding AGPs who claim they and their penises are in fact female, and thus that they are not “in transition.” They were born female, with female peen.
By that reasoning, they can use the women’s restroom.

it’s interesting to see the effects of these Gender Identity statutes that replace the legal definition of sex with “feelings” play out on the ground with the general public. Folks are like OF COURSE this can’t mean that Bruce Jenner and company are showering in the stall next to my 12 year old daughter! That could never be! lolololol.

I just don’t understand why transpersons insist on using restrooms for people of the opposite sex. Anyone can say that they feel like anything, and the public is forced to trust that individual regardless of their personal history or criminal record. I’m bitter and jaded and don’t trust anyone anymore, let alone some MRA in a dress claiming his penis is female and demanding to have PIV with lesbians.

This is exactly what I explained to someone yesterday, a newcomer to this whole issue who thought the handicapped bathroom is the obvious solution for trans folks. I told him they’ve rejected that option every time because a place to pee isn’t really the end goal here.

My apologies, in advance, for the language I am likely to use in discussing this matter. But this article from 2013 (which I don’t think the author realized how problematic it was) shows that the slippery slope has already been started down and I am going to call it out for what it is.

I will say it, up front. Transgender women are women. Transgender men are men. There is no reason based on fact to deny them the right to use the bathroom appropriate to the gender with with which they identify. Unless a jurisdiction has laws in place guaranteeing transgender people the right to use the appropriate bathroom, creating gender-neutral bathrooms in an attempt to herd us into them, Indicates two things. First it denies that transgender women, are women and transgender men, are men. Second, it provides incentives for conservative wingnuts and religious lunatics to ramp of their campaigns of hatred and bigotry. These hate filled bastards must be stopped at all costs. Any attempt to compromise with them, is surrender and wrong.

For 38 years, I have used the restroom appropriate for my gender. If anyone tries to stop me from doing so, I will pee on their floor, before I use a gender-neutral bathroom. The answer is not forcing us into gender-neutral bathrooms. The answer is not in educating the public, because those that are making an issue of which bathroom we use, are not interested in being educated. They are only interested in feeling superior because they can harass and intimidate others. The answer is in legal protection for transgender people. Separate, but equal was outlawed years ago. It must not be brought back, again. The hate mongers must not be permitted to win. The reasons they put forth for their actions are bogus and simply not based on fact. I will not sit idly by, while others promote an idea that only reinforces their attempts to exclude us from the rest of society.

Again, unless a jurisdiction guarantees the right of transgender people to use the bathroom appropriate to the gender with which they identify, gender-neutral bathrooms must be opposed in that jurisdiction. Otherwise, the politicians will say, that since there is a gender-neutral bathroom we may safely use, there is no need to protect our rights.

Yes. A notorious example is the porn actor Lily Cade, a lesbian, who got (and still get’s from time to time) enormous shit for not wanting to have sex with a pre-op trans called Chelsea Poe who demanded that Cade cast Poe (i.e. have sex with Poe) in Cade’s films.

Here’s a post with links and videos of MTTs talking about The Cotton Ceiling Workshop which was held at a Planned Parenthood in Toronto in 2012 and how it’s about trying to get lesbians who dont see them as women ( cause they aren’t women, they’re men) to have sex with men who identify as women. https://stoptranschauvinism.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/cotton-ceiling/

Hi Kalmia: Thanks for the link. All this time I assumed that these pre-op MTFs wanted the lesbians to somehow ignore the penises in front of them. I had no idea that the lesbian was actually expected to not only acknowledge the penis, but have heterosexual-style vaginal intercourse with it.

from the article, the parts that made me laugh for real :
1) Regardless of whether a trans woman exists in one of these realms or not, she deserves to be considered as more than a living, breathing sex toy.

really? I thought you wanted to be women, WELCOME TO WOMANHOOD.

2) but grappling with the fact that you’re an accessory to someone’s experience because of your body is intense.

how can a trans type that and really NOT see the irony?

there’s more in there but I’m only posting the bits that are still making me laugh (it may have hit hysterical laughter at this point but, I’ll take that today)

[@ stchauvinism’s comment] thanks for that informative link, although it is pretty gross. And Planned Parenthood would be hosting and/or sponsoring that workshop WHY exactly? Good night grief, I hope none of the PP’s in the USA are caught doing crap like that; they have enough problems as it is.

“All this time I assumed that these pre-op MTFs wanted the lesbians to somehow ignore the penises in front of them.”

They’ll lie about it and claim that. The latest thing on Tumblr is MTTs claiming that romantic relationships don’t have to include sex. But, as you can expect from any sex-obsessed man, they’re completely full of it. Straight women have had to deal with men pretending they’re not after one thing to get us to let down our guard. Now MTTs are trying it with lesbians. Their tactics aren’t surprising; how much support they’re getting from people who should know better is surprising, and enraging.

And, of course, there’s the very real threat of rape. Men might have a fantasy of women willingly acquiescing once they get us alone, but the reality is force. Lesbians shouldn’t even voluntarily be in the same room with trans “lesbians” in my opinion.

And, yes, most of them are likely harmless, at least from the perspective not being quite that violent, but you can’t tell the rapist from the loser Nice Guy just by looking. Also, being in the same room with a sadsack MTT will carry the much more likely scenario of having to put up with his whining and cajoling and pathetic-ness. I’ve been through that with regular straight men; it’s not fun.

I am glad that at least they have this policy to protect children, but it sounds like that once you’re an adult woman then suddenly you can still be forced to share a locker room with some perverted man who claims to be a woman.

Still, I know YMCA is going to get a ton of crap for this, even though it is perfectly reasonable.

Can I ask you all something that I totally don’t understand. Why are they always talking and seeking rights for men who want to be women, and not for women who want to be man. So women bathrooms are turned into neutral zone our sex is erasing in front of our eyes and males can keep theirs.
Why they don’t ask for men to accommodate women who want to be men??? I didn’t see one article calling men to have neutral bathroom and to not beat trans persons. Maybe we should talk about that with other people on net to convince them that double standard really exists. The only time I convinced one person that something is not right with all this trans thing is when I used this argument. It became clear that male who want to be female are harassing women, if they wanted justice for trans people they would talk about women to men trans people.

Because these are men’s rights activists that use women who trans -only when needed. You will find that most trans orgs and LBGT only caters to born men. The only ‘lesbian’ case that I have heard of getting help lately is a lesbian couple that sued when they were prevented from kissing in public. It was superficial and catered to men’s desires to see young lesbians kiss in public.

All the money going to trans AND LBGT, ONLY is funneled to born-men. Don’t give money to them anymore, you are just funding your own oppression.

Women, all women need to break away from the men’s sex -orgs that only cater to men’s sexuality. Women’s rights are human rights, –
Women’s rights are not a sub category of a men’s sex org- and sadly, that is what they-and the struggle for female equality has become..

Washington state law allows adult biological men to share showers, locker rooms, restrooms, and dressing rooms with even young girls if the man “feels” he is female. This was confirmed to me by the Seattle office of civil rights. Glad to see someone is finally challenging child sex abuse in Washington state.

Well, my ex boyfriend and his fellow “sisters” in the area have just heard of this. Gonna sue! This must stop! Sit ins here and those spas that don’t feel it is appropriate to have uncovered dicks waggling around!

So glad I broke up with him. Something was always “off”. At the time, couldn’t articulate it but had a gut feeling that no matter how much I liked him I couldn’t let him be the father of my children

The trans sue, and they will most certainly lose. That is because of the simple truth that there is a compelling public interest–safety and dignity of girls and women–that far outweighs their dubious right to get their freak on. The more these men protest, the more obvious to all these men are a bunch of pervs.

In truth, being a cross dresser is not a legitimate protected class, especially when their “movement” conflicts with women’s rights. I truly believe it is time for a return of the terms transvestite and transsexual because everybody knows what those terms mean. Transgender intentionally obscures more than it describes. Since the last refers to postop trans and the former is a sexual fetish, the terms make it more clear what their aim is. They want validation for their sexual kinks.

If men in dresses invade women-only public spaces, establishments should at the very least be subject to civil suits and criminal charges.

A bar owner in Oregon owes a cross dressers group, The Portland T-Girls $400,000 for asking them not to patronize his establishment even though members of the group post videos of themselves pissing in the women’s restrooms.

Cross dressers are a protected class in Washington, but they shouldn’t be because what they are doing is infringing on the rights of other protected classes, namely women. I think women should be suing the hell out of these establishments that erase women and get that law thrown out. Idiot politicians feel so sorry for these mostly men without understanding that gender identity is a fraudulent term to cover up for male sexual fetishes. They seem totally obviously to the fact these guys are transvestites for all intents and purposes, they are into all kinds of kinky crap that has nothing whatsoever to do with “identity.” “Identity” is a load of shit term.

I listened and I was impressed by the polite yet insistent questions of the host. I loved the point made by the caller who said that there are laws that restrict the exposure of opposite sex nudity to minors in public establishments, and policies that apply to foster and adoptive parents about the same thing, all of which are probably being violated even by the new YMCA policy allowing transgendered people into opposite sex locker rooms for people over 15. The lawyer tried to dismiss it as saying that people bring their small children into the bathrooms /locker rooms for the opposite sex all the time, and the caller quickly pointed out that a 15 year old is not the same as a 3 year old, and may not have the protection of a parent with her.

Also, both the YMCA director and the attorney evaded the question of whether their employees are “allowed to ask” after a caller said that it is well documented that they are not. They just said that criminal/ inappropriate activity will be dealt with, and that can happen anywhere, at any time anyway. In other words, reminding women that they are never safe anywhere, and that they may not insist on privacy or question a man’s intentions until it is too late.

Why does this only apply to “family facilities” that include children? This should apply to adult females as well.

“For locker rooms at “adult facilities,” transgender members may use locker rooms and restrooms that align with their gender identification. That applies to Tacoma Center YMCA and University Y Student Center”

So, a forty year old man can still have his penis and testicles and shower and change clothes with 18 and 19 year old girls?

Skylark — a biological adult male in Washington state has the legal right to use showers, locker rooms, dressing rooms, and restrooms reserved for women and girls. There is no requirement that he be removed even if he wants to shower in the presence of 10 year old girls at the public pools.

Im a fat, ugly old woman with no shame about nudity who is fed up with these jerky bully-boys and I think if I got a posse of similar minded women to start getting our gender fluid on en masse in men’s locker rooms, bath houses, etc, the right to sex segregated spaces in Washington might suddenly be upheld.

The Seattle City Council just recently passed a law, without any advance warning to the public, that all single-stalled restrooms in the city marked “men” and “women” now have to be made “gender neutral.” When I complained that this increases danger to the women and girls of the city, because, for example, in a dark bar, no one would particularly notice a man walking right in after a drunk woman (because after all, he’s merely using the restroom), I was told I was irrational. It’s only a single stall; labeling has no additional safety benefit to women and girls. The Seattle City Council was pressured to pass this bill by Seattle gay and alcoholic mayor, Ed Murray.

Bob, I talked with several council staffers and was told by at least two that they felt a lot of pressure from Murray on this issue. It was really his doing. As for his drinking, he is widely known in the local gay community as having a problem.

The Seattle policy was based on recommendations of the LGBT Comission of 15 persons not one of whom is listed on the commission website. Queer, pan, bi, fluid, no L.

It’s all male alphabet, and their LGBT commission recommended the neutral gender toilet policy for parks and recreation and the gay mayor expanded to entire city. Very little public dialog if at all. Coercion. Sexual fascism.

The same LGBT commission voted not to question the gay Jewish mayor when his trip to LGBT Israel was paid for by Israeli group. Because. LGBT. No thought Palestine genocide.

Readers should realize that in Washington state, a biological man has the right to use women’s locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and dressing rooms if he “feels” he is female. There are no age restrictions as regards sharing the facilities with young girls and adolescents. This is confirmed state law.

My neighbor told me this story. A few years ago she went to a gym in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. She was wrapped in a towel and went to the women’s sauna. She opened the door and discovered splayed across the bench a tall naked biological male with long hair and a full erection. She quickly shut the door, packed her bag, and left the gym.

I asked her why she didn’t report the incident to the front office. She couldn’t because she was traumatized. My friend had been raped at the age of 14, and this brought up all the fear and pain associated with that incident. So, unfortunately, a chance to pursue charges was lost. But, I imagine that this scenario could be very common in women who have been abused, and that they would rather simply escape the scenario than confront it.

Writing this comment got me to thinking about my friend’s story. So I called the gym in question this morning. I was told that due to recent problems they’ve had with biological males using the women’s sauna, they have now changed their policy. Men can use the women’s sauna only after they have fully transitioned and have had their genitalia removed. Men who are in the process of transitioning are now required to use the men’s sauna.

I’ve heard this one before–they should be able to use the women’s facilities after they’ve had “the chop.”

Sorry, no. A post-op m2f still has a penis, albeit one that’s been turned inside out. More importantly, he’s still a male. He doesn’t need an erect penis to rape or otherwise molest. A post-op m2f in women’s facilities is, at a minimum, some kind of peeping tom and should be treated as such.

Another thing that occurs to me is that women who encounter a predator like that would also be, rightly, scared of not being believed or being dismissed. As bad as it is having to see a strange man’s erection, to my mind, it’s far worse to go through the betrayal of authority figures not giving a crap or telling you to get over it.

I’m old enough and angry enough these days that that sort of thing would only make me outraged and more determined to fight for my rights, but many women, especially those who have already been abused, aren’t up for that, nor should they have to be. They should be able to expect safety and privacy, period.

Legal theorist Elizabeth Hungerford compiled a chart showing Gender Identity statutes in each state. Several are lumped under sexual orientation. These things were passed without much consideration as to their effects on the ground. Here is the table:

They always think they pass, with their funky little jawline beards and tiny hands. Narrow shoulders and faux swag. And yeah, hips don’t lie. Pretty sad though to see her enjoying the idea of frightening other women. As if.